MINDFULNESS: FULL CONSCIOUS ATTENTION

Mindfulness refers to a concept of psychology which frames the maximum capacity for concentration that a person can achieve, with the objective of relieving some physical or mental problem that person may have. This concept arises from a Buddhist belief, originated by the professor Jon Kabat-Zinn. Member of the Medical Society of the University of Massachusetts, Kabat-Zinn has focused his work on the scientific implementation of meditation as a feasible tool for conventional medicine.

The specialist achieved worldwide recognition after integrating Buddhist concepts with western medicine. His studies have been based on the application of yoga and meditation as conventional treatment against diverse conditions like stress and anxiety. This therapy is also known as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), being shortened to Mindfulness.

This complementary medical program is postulated as a less aggressive and invasive method, in comparison with the common treatments used to combat stress, depression and anxiety based on anxiolytics that although successful in solving the conditions of the patient, also carry a number of consequences and contraindications like the addictive potential, inducing seizures, palpitations and muscular weakness.

The same creator of the ‘Mindfulness’ therapy, Jon Kabat-Zinn, says in a single phrase the methodology to follow to reach mindfulness: “Paying attention moment to moment to the present experience, without making judgments and with an attitude of acceptance”. It is worth to highlight that this concept doesn’t go hand in hand with any religious or esoteric effect, because ‘Mindfulness’ only takes into account the identification of a particular thought, without generating any emotion, perception or affection regarding it.

Aside from treating pathologies of stress and anxiety, this method of mindfulness has been channeled towards the solution of chronic diseases, eating disorders, improvement of the immunological system’s capacity, and generating complete wellbeing through the exercises of meditation it proposes.

‘Mindfulness’ has achieved a firm position as a method of complementary medicine after proving its incidence in the process of learning, memory, and referential processing. A study conducted in January of 2011 concluded that those patients who were part of the MBSR had “changes in the concentration of gray matter in regions of the brain involved in the processes of learning and memory, emotional regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective”.

Likewise, new investigations related to the effectiveness of Mindfulness concluded that after the practice of the routines of attention based on the Buddhist practices of meditations, it was registered that the volunteers used the right prefrontal part of the brain further than the left prefrontal part. The difference between both is highlighted because the right part is associated with anxiety and depression, while the left one has been associated with wellbeing.